PDIL awarded consultancy contract for CIL's coal-to-methanol plant

New Delhi: State-owned PDIL has been issued a letter of acceptance for providing pre-award consultancy services to set up a coal-to-methanol project at Coal India arm SECL's Dankuni Coal Complex, CIL said Tuesday. The development assumes significance as Coal India (CIL) is aiming to produce 6.76 lakh tonne of methanol per annum to boost clean energy initiatives.

"The offer of PDIL (Projects & Development India Ltd) was techno-commercially accepted and the letter of acceptance was issued to them," said a spokesperson of CIL. Projects & Development India Ltd and consultant engineering firm M N Dastur were vying for the said job.

The CIL spokesperson said M N Dastur & Co had emerged as provisional L-1 (lowest) bidder through the reverse auction process upon understanding furnished by the company which was subject to verification of documents.

However, its offer was rejected due to non-compliance of confirmatory documents and not fulfilling the requirements as per the eligibility criteria, even after providing them opportunity to submit shortfall documents, the spokesperson added.

"Subsequently, as per the provisions of the NIT (notice inviting tender), the offer submitted by the next lower bidder, i.e. Projects and Development India Ltd, a Government of India undertaking, was evaluated and they were found to have fulfilled the eligibility criteria as per NIT," he said.

However, M N Dastur Vice-President Abhijit Sarkar said, "We were not only the lowest bidder, but also the most qualified bidder. Therefore, our disqualification is clearly not on the basis of merit. Nobody in India, apart from M N Dastur, has worked on commercial scale coal gasification and related downstream in chemicals."

CIL had earlier said it was planning to set up a coal-based methanol plant at Dankuni Coal Complex of South Eastern Coalfields Ltd (SECL), a subsidiary of the company.

As part of its initiative to promote clean energy and environment, government think-tank Niti Aayog had earlier said it is preparing a road map for full-scale implementation of methanol economy in the near future.

Methanol economy, if adopted by India, can be one of the best ways to mitigate the environmental hazards of a growing nation, the Niti Aayog said.

In the marine sector also, the government is planning to make methanol as a fuel of choice because of emission benefits.